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Chefs may consider making pizza more of an art form, but there’s also a science to making the perfect slice. At least, according to two Italian physicists and authors of the paper “The Physics of Baking Good Pizza.”

Published earlier this year in the preprint journal arXiv, the study was written by physicists Andrey Varlamov of the Institute of Superconductors, Oxides and Other Innovative Materials and Devices in Rome; Andreas Glatz of Northern Illinois University; and food anthropologist, Sergio Grasso, who sampled Margherita pizza across Rome, Italy in the lead up to their paper.

According to the researchers, the best pizza is made by the pizzaiolos (pizza bakers) of Italy, who rely on curved brick ovens with a fire-brick bottom heated to 625 degrees Fahrenheit (330 degrees Celsius) to perfectly bake the pie of tomato, mozzarella, and basil on all sides. In two minutes, the fresh pizza is “covered with mouth-watering bubbles of cheese, encouraging you to consume it and wash it down with a pitcher of good beer.”

The secret is in the physics of the brick oven used, the pizzaiolos told the researchers. The oven ensures the heat radiates uniformly and bakes the pizza evenly. When the pizza requires more bake time because of added toppings, the bakers lift the pizza up with a wooden or aluminum spade for an additional 30 seconds.

But if you don’t have a brick oven at home (who does?), you can still make the perfect pizza. The researchers came up with a mathematical formula “based on basic thermodynamic principles” that explains what temperature your pizza reaches depending on the oven temperature and the material it is made of.

The researchers determined that a home electric oven could mimic the conditions created by the brick oven used by pizzaiolos by turning the heat down to 450 degrees F for 170 seconds. The authors also noted that pizzas with toppings with higher water content, such as vegetables, may need to remain in the oven longer, “as the pizza will return more heat to the oven via evaporation,” according to LiveScience.